KARACHI: The Sindh chief minister has approved a significant rise in allowances of 100 police officials working with a premier teaching facility to boost their morale and to stop “corruption at police teaching facilities”, it emerged on Friday.

The officials in the provincial government said the finance department had notified an order after an approval from the competent authority (chief minister) last week notifying the scale of 100 police officials vis-a-vis their hefty allowances.

The order explicitly said the heavy allowances were purely meant for those staffs of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Elite Police Training Centre at Razzaqabad who were involved in teaching activities.

The officials said that similar allowances would soon be announced for staffs in other teaching facilities.

The 100 officials who get the rise in allowances according to their grades at the Razzaqabad Training Centre include a senior superintendent of police, a superintendent and five deputy superintendents. Besides, there are 10 inspectors, 15 sub-inspectors and 20 assistant sub-inspectors who have got the pay rise. The rest include 20 head constables and 28 constables.

Their total monthly allowances ranged between Rs126,180 and Rs22,140.

Officials said the rise in allowances for the staff of the teaching facility was in accordance with the provincial government policy to tackle persistent militant attacks in Sindh, particularly in its provincial capital, Karachi.

Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had repeatedly called for a larger investment in improving the province’s security infrastructure to maintain the law and order.

He had recently said that the militants were better trained and equipped than the Sindh police.

A couple of months ago the provincial government announced that a hefty amount of Rs6.5 billion had been approved for purchase of high-tech weapons and counterterrorism training of the police.

The chief minister had announced an additional sum of Rs1.5 billion for the Razzaqabad police training centre and said that the police would be provided with most modern weapons and training.

The officials said the increase for the teachers’ allowances was part of the government’s same strategy to counter militants and influential criminals.

“Such increase was overdue. It will make our teachers more efficient, less prone to corruption and better professional and enable them give us better-trained police officers who can skilfully combat against the powerful enemy,” said a senior official in the provincial home department.

“We are already fighting valiantly, but better training through honest officials will certainly improve our officers’ powers and skills,” he added.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014